Kentucky Retirement Systems Has $1.42 Million Stock Position in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP)

Kentucky Retirement Systems lowered its holdings in shares of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. (NYSE:CNP) by 1.4% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 44,786 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after selling 616 shares during the period. Kentucky Retirement Systems’ holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $1,421,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.5% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 15,083,896 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $442,231,000 after acquiring an additional 370,790 shares during the period. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 5.2% in the third quarter. Duff & Phelps Investment Management Co. now owns 5,009,756 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $147,387,000 after acquiring an additional 247,944 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.9% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,956,432 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $116,398,000 after acquiring an additional 110,905 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 2.1% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 3,177,364 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $93,478,000 after acquiring an additional 65,139 shares during the period. Finally, Swiss National Bank grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% in the third quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 1,898,800 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $55,863,000 after acquiring an additional 24,400 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on CNP. UBS Group raised CenterPoint Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $31.00 to $37.00 in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Scotiabank raised CenterPoint Energy from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $30.00 to $35.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Barclays lifted their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $29.00 to $30.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 27th. Guggenheim cut CenterPoint Energy from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 23rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on CenterPoint Energy from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $31.65.

CenterPoint Energy Stock Performance

Shares of CenterPoint Energy stock opened at $34.32 on Monday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $32.34 and its 200 day simple moving average is $30.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.71 and a beta of 0.95. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 12 month low of $25.41 and a 12 month high of $34.39. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.91.

CenterPoint Energy (NYSE:CNP) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 20th. The utilities provider reported $0.40 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40. The business had revenue of $2.26 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.46 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 10.02% and a net margin of 11.79%. As a group, analysts anticipate that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.75 EPS for the current year.

CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, March 13th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, February 20th will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, February 20th. This is a positive change from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.21. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.56%. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is presently 55.35%.

About CenterPoint Energy

CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Electric and Natural Gas. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as optimizes assets in the wholesale power market.